Computer networks have evolved from isolated intranets to a worldwide system of routers, switches, servers, computers, and network devices comprising millions of network devices. A network device is any electronic device capable of communicating over a network with other electronic devices using a communications protocol, for example TCP/IP. Large organizations or enterprises such as banks, insurance companies, and government entities manage internal networks or intranets comprising thousands of network devices.
The success of an enterprise depends on the successful management of its network devices. Successful management of network devices allows individuals in distant offices to communicate via email and voice over IP (VoIP) and also allows large enterprise information systems (EIS) to manage data throughout an organization. Unsuccessful management of an organization's resources results in disastrous interruptions in the basic functions of the organization. For example, the failure of a bank's network prevents automated teller machined (ATMs) from dispensing cash to customers and bank tellers from servicing the needs of walk-in bank customers.
An enterprise typically empowers a small department of network administrators with the task of managing its thousands of network devices. Success is measured by the number of hours per year that the network is available to all users of the network. Information technology (IT) management software exists to assist the network administrator in monitoring and managing the routers, switches, hubs, servers, and computers in an enterprise intranet. Typical IT management software packages display the status of individual routers, switches, and servers. For example, an administrator may review the system load experienced by a critical router using an IT management software tool. The tool may display the status of each link connected to the router and the traffic rate over each link. Advanced tools may alert the administrator to specific critical conditions, displaying a router whose utilization level is above 90% of capacity in red while displaying routers operating at 80% of capacity in yellow.
Another conventional IT management software tool is a general topology viewer that provides custom groupings of network devices according to user-selected attributes. Although this technology has proven to be useful, it would be desirable to present additional improvements. The overall purpose of an enterprise is to move data between entities such as computer hosts and volumes in storage subsystems. Relations between entities can be described as a data path; the data path is the series of entities and connections through which data flows between a particular host and volume. The general topology viewer finds information about a single entity and connections to its immediate neighbors. However, the details of connections between many entities are more difficult to display. To view a data path with the general topology viewer, the user is required to drill down to each entity in the path, then drill up again before moving to the next entity. The user either views too little detail from a high-level perspective of a system, or too much detail with many low-level entities, with no filtering of the entities presented within their relationships to one another.
What is therefore needed is a system, a service, a computer program product, and an associated method for disclosing relations between entities in support of information technology system visualization and management. The need for such a solution has heretofore remained unsatisfied.